RoboBall, the ball robot to explore craters on the moon.

If you didn't imagine a ball-shaped robot rolling down steep slopes of the moon, mapping craters where no other vehicle could enter, that is the proposal of Roboball, a concept that was born from NASA 20 years ago and that is now coming to life at Texas A&M University.

The spherical format may seem simple, but precisely because it does not have a defined front or back, it is capable of navigating in places where robots with wheels or legs would get stuck. The original idea arose with engineer Dr. Robert Ambrose, who even built a prototype, but the project was shelved when the focus changed towards manned airships. Now in college, Ambrose returned to the concept together with two graduate students.

They are developing two versions, the RoboBall 2, smaller with 60 cm in diameter to test power and control algorithms and the RoboBall 3, much larger, 1.80 cm in diameter, designed to carry sensors, cameras, even real emissions collection tools.

The first field tests are being carried out on Texas beaches, the idea is to demonstrate that the robot can achieve something unprecedented, leaving the water and entering the sand without tipping over or getting stuck, something impossible for conventional vehicles. If it works, it will be proof that the Roboball can tackle environments ranging from Earth's seas to lunar craters.

In one of those tests, the smallest version managed to impress by reaching 32 km per hour, half of its theoretical limit. Of course, this design also brings its challenges, as the entire mechanical part is sealed within a protective casing, any failure requires disassembling and reassembling the entire robot.

And since there is no similar project on the market, they are having to invent solutions from scratch for each obstacle, but the long-term vision is ambitious, swarms of Roboballs being launched from lunar modules, rolling through craters to map the terrain, collect data and even install equipment in places where humans could never safely reach.

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